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In My Backyard: Sound Effect, Episode 74

This week on Sound Effect, we have stories of how neighborhoods in the Puget Sound region coexist with homelessness and indigence.

Not In Anyone’s Backyard

We begin with a neighborhood where tensions between residents and their homeless neighbors have been simmering. People in Magnolia and Interbay say they’ve watched as the population of people living in RVs has grown, along with crime, trash and lots and lots of used needles. Harley Lever is one of the people who has pushed for the city to do somethingabout the disorder. He favors “safe RV’ lots and social services for addicts, but he also advocates for a “tough love” type of response for people "who resist services," born of his personal connections to addiction and homelessness.

House Next Door

Seattle’s South Park neighborhood has lots of people like Jeff Hayes – a block captain and activist committed to helping his neighborhood thrive. But it also has houses like the one right next to Hayes’, where fights break out, trash accumulates, drug activity carries on and police visit regularly. Hayes has tried everything he can think of to get the situation under control – as has, it turns out, the woman who owns the house. KPLU’s Jennifer Wing brings us the story of how these two neighbors struggle, in very different ways, with what to do about one chaotic spot.

Tacoma’s Malt Liquor Experiment

In the early 2000s, people who living and working in Tacoma’s downtown and Hilltop neighborhoods were complaining of many of the same kinds of things – malt liquor bottles everywhere, public inebriation and disorder. So Tacoma became the first place in Washington state to try a particular kind of intervention: They banned retailers and liquors stores in certain areas from selling high-alcohol, low-cost beverages like malt liquor and fortified wine. Sound Effect’s Kevin Kniestedt reportson what the program’s backers call successes, but critics call a misdirected swipe at poor, addicted people.

From Hooverville To The Jungle

Debates over how to deal with homelessness and indigence go way back in Seattle’s story. Leonard Garfield, executive director of the Museum of History and Industry, says look no further than Seattle’s Depression-era Hooverville – believed to be the largest of those “shack cities” on the West Coast. He says those collections of down-and-out people share many similarities, and some important differences, with the homeless encampments the Northwest cities are grappling with today.

A Rude Awakening

In response to the perception of increased crime and disorder in Magnolia and Interbay, a group of neighbors pitched in to hire a private security force to patrol the area. Andrew Harris, a longtime Magnolia resident who recently became homeless, was awakened in his car one morningby one of those guards. The incident ended with Harris pepper sprayed and in handcuffs, and wondering whether people like him are still welcome in the neighborhood where he’s lived for nearly two decades. 

Sound Effect is your weekly tour of ideas, inspired by the place we live. The show is hosted by KPLU's Gabriel Spitzer.